


He Blinded Me With Science!

by lachatblanche



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), X-Men (Movies), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, M/M, Science Boyfriends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 11:00:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5454230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lachatblanche/pseuds/lachatblanche
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony and Charles meet at a party. Nerdiness abounds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He Blinded Me With Science!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gerec](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gerec/gifts).



> This is a birthday fic for my darling Gerec who is the most glorious Internet Spouse in the world <3

Tony leaned against the wall, nursing what was quite possibly his ninth beer of the night. Or tenth. Eleventh, possibly. He didn’t know. He hadn’t really been paying all that much attention. He glanced over to the middle of the room where Rhodey was now happily holding court over a handful of starry-eyed undergrads, and hid a grin. Until five minutes ago, he had been at the centre of that crowd and he had spent the whole evening there, having drinks pressed into his hands by ardent admirers and hangers-on … which, now that he thought about it, accounted for him losing track of how much he was drinking. Not that he ever really paid that much attention to the beer-count anyway.

An urgent trip to the bathroom had pulled him away from the crowd, but now that he was out of it, Tony didn’t really feel like going back in. There were too many _people_. Usually he liked that, but right now – nine or ten or eleven beers in – his mind was buzzing and his fingers were itching and what he really wanted to do was get back into his lab and _work_. Pepper and Rhodey had forcibly dragged him away from his tools, knowing that a break would do him good, and to be fair, it _had_. Taking a step away had cleared his mind and, in spite of the alcohol, he was now feeling more awake and refreshed than before.

Tony chewed his lip, looking around at the room and feeling torn. His gaze drifted past everyone – past Rhodey in the centre of the room, past Pepper and Natasha chatting together in the corner, past Clint and Steve leaning against a beer cooler, past a weird, floppy-haired kid swaying dorkily by the window – and then drifted down to where someone’s large handbag was lying open, its contents fairly spilling out of it. 

Tony cocked his head to the side. Then, crouching down, he quickly rummaged through the bag and then, with a grunt of triumph, pulled out a tube of bright, scarlet-red lipstick.

‘That’ll do,’ he said, and then, taking off the top, he turned to the wall and started to scrawl.

‘Hey, Stark’s writing on the wall!’ someone slurred from behind him, but Tony just tuned him out and continued to write, his attention wholly focused on the equation in front of him.

When he finally tuned back in twenty minutes later, he was surprised to see someone standing next to him, squinting blearily at the writing in front of him. When Tony blinked to clear his eyes, he realised that it was the dorky kid from before – the one with the floppy hair and the too-big sweater and the _whoa there_ big blue eyes and pretty red lips who had been doing the nerdy dance from before.

Tony stared at him bemusedly while the kid perused his lipstick-scrawl with a scrunched-up nose, swaying back and forth in a way that Tony realised had more to do with the drink in his hand than for any real affinity for the music that was playing.

‘Huh,’ the kid said after a moment. He then turned to Tony, who raised an eyebrow at him,

‘Can I help you there, squirt?’ he asked dryly, still holding the lipstick in his hand.

Floppy-hair studied him for a moment before solemnly holding out a hand. ‘Can I borrow that, please?’ he asked politely, his words smooth and very British, though slightly marred by the barest hint of slurring.

Tony blinked at him and then glanced down at the lipstick in his hand. He stared at it for a moment before bemusedly handing it over to Floppy-hair, not entirely sure what he intended to do with it.

Floppy-hair took the lipstick and then looked down at it, assessing. ‘Ah,’ he said after a moment. ‘Scarlet Siren. A particularly vivid shade.’ Then, before Tony could get in the legitimate _what the hell_ that he was entitled to, the kid turned back around so that he was facing the wall and, without even hesitating, reached out and drew a thick red line through part of Tony’s calculations.

‘Hey!’ Tony immediately protested, because not even Floppy-hair’s amazing ass could distract him from the fact that the asshole had just defaced his work. ‘What the h—’ He paused abruptly as he realised that the kid hadn’t stopped working – now, instead of striking through Tony’s writing he was adding his own series of … huh. He was adding his own really quite complex and completely accurate set of equations. How … unexpected.

‘What’cha doing there?’ Tony asked, scratching his chin, following the somehow mesmerising rise and fall of the lipstick in the kid’s fingers.

The kid didn’t answer; he just hummed and continued writing. Tony watched him in bleary-eyed awe until he realised that the angle at which Floppy-hair was bending over to write meant that he got a _fantastic_ view of the man’s ass, and so he had immediately taken a swift step to the left and had concentrated on _that_ for a while instead of the equation. 

‘There,’ Floppy-hair said at last, straightening back up and looking at the wall with a tipsy sense of satisfaction. Tony mourned the loss of an amazing view, though he had to admit that the kid’s trousers were still extremely flattering even when he was upright. ‘That should do it.’

‘I’m sure it does,’ Tony assured him, before cocking his head. ‘What were you trying to do exactly?’

Floppy-hair blinked at him. ‘I was making it better,’ he said, pointing to the equation that had been scrawled on the wall.

Tony stared at him for a moment. Then he turned and squinted at the wall. ‘Huh,’ he said, scratching his chin. ‘You … made it better.’

‘Well I assumed you were trying to calibrate your machine for an actual human being,’ Floppy-hair said earnestly, wide blue eyes fixed anxiously on Tony as he scrutinised the lipstick writing. ‘As opposed to – well. A non-human being. Which you could have been doing.’ He suddenly looked worried. ‘I didn’t mess things up for you, did I?’

Tony turned away from the wall and opened his mouth, intending to assure Floppy-hair that he hadn’t messed anything up at all, but instead what came out was: ‘You’ve got a great ass.’

The kid stared at him. Tony stared back.

‘Oh,’ Floppy-hair said after a pause. ‘That’s not exactly what I was expecting but it’s nice all the same, I suppose.’ He shook his head and smiled. ‘Thank you, I guess – I’m flattered.’

‘And I’m Tony,’ Tony cringed the moment he said it, but strangely enough Floppy-hair looked oddly charmed by the cheesy line. ‘Tony Stark, engineering.’

‘Charles Xavier,’ Floppy-hair returned, taking Tony’s hand carefully in his own and shaking it solemnly. ‘Genetics.’

‘Genetics, huh?’ Tony leaned forward with a leer. ‘Then I guess you’d know all about how to unzip my genes?’

Charles’s smile grew wider and he swayed forward, wobbling slightly. ‘Maybe I could give you a private demonstration,’ he said brightly, licking his lips and looking hopeful. ‘I’ve had lots of practice with unzipping jeans.’

Tony was just about to respond with something clever and sexy and amazing when they were interrupted.

‘Oh, what the hell guys,’ came Sam’s dismayed voice. ‘You wrote on my _wall_? Seriously?’

Charles blinked and looked around blearily, for the first time seeming to realise that they weren’t alone. ‘Wait, we’re not in the lab?’ he asked, looking confused. It was stupidly adorable, and Tony felt his heart and his groin both react with dizzying readiness to the sight.

‘No, man, you’re in my goddamn apartment!’ Sam said, glaring at him. He then turned and, seeking Steve out, turned his glare on him. ‘I swear it, Rogers, this is the last time I allow you to bring your friends to my parties.’ He turned back and his shoulders sank when he saw the wall again. ‘My _wall_ , you guys. There’s no way that bastard Pierce is giving me back my deposit now.’

‘To be fair, you kind of lost that deposit when you decided knife-throwing would be a suitable hobby to learn in a dorm room,’ Natasha said with a shrug, sounding thoroughly unsympathetic.

‘You’re the one gave me the damn lessons in the first place!’ Sam retorted, throwing her a dirty look, to which Natasha just shrugged and wandered off.

Tony shook his head. ‘Guys,’ he said, raising his hands. ‘There’s really no need to make this a big deal. We’ll get this place repainted, don’t worry about it.’

‘Yeah? And who’s going to be paying for that exactly?’ Sam grumbled.

‘I will,’ Charles said at the exact same moment that Tony did. They looked at each other and blinked. 

‘Old money,’ Charles said with a shrug.

‘New money,’ Tony said in return.

‘Fuck you,’ Clint called from the corner. ‘No one cares.’

Tony and Charles stood there awkwardly for a moment.

‘So …’ Charles began, shuffling his feet.

‘Do you want to come back to mine?’ Tony blurted out almost without meaning to. He paused, reviewing what he’d just said, and then, deeming it to be exactly what he’d always intended to say, decided to go with it. ‘I’m literally just across the road. Like – you could look out the window and see my bedroom from here. Which, come to think about it, is actually kind of creepy.’

Charles was biting his lower lip, looking thoughtful. ‘Well,’ he said slowly. ‘I do still have to give you a demonstration of my prowess at unzipping jeans.’

‘Absolutely,’ Tony said quickly. ‘A hands-on demonstration. My thoughts exactly.’

‘And then,’ Charles continued musingly, ‘maybe we could go over your equation again … Maybe see if I can spot any _other_ holes in need of investigation ...’ His eyes twinkled and his lips twitched and just like that Tony knew that this here was something special.

‘Charles,’ he said, smiling widely as he put his arm around Charles’s shoulders and steered him swiftly towards the door. ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’

*****

The next morning saw Charles and Tony collapsed on the large king sized bed in Tony’s apartment with empty beer cans on the floor and their clothes strangely – somehow – still on their bodies. They were curled around each other in a pleasant doze, and the light was just creeping into the room along with the sound of birdsong from the open window next to them.

Then, breaking through the idyllic atmosphere came the very distant, grating sound of a window being forcibly drawn open and the violent _flump_ of the sash being thrown back.

‘Hey, assholes,’ came a loud, echoing shout from the opposite building sitting just across the road. ‘When the hell are you shitheads going to do something about my goddamn wall?’


End file.
